ABOUT

Ernest Luning

Denver Democrats cheered President Barack Obama’s second inauguration at a bash thrown locally on Monday night at an East Denver restaurant. The inaugural gala, sponsored by the Democrats of House Districts 6 and 8, featured replays of the day’s highlights in the swank surroundings at the Cork House Broker Restaurant, familiar to neighborhood denizens as the longtime home of the venerable Tante Louise.

The race to chair the Colorado Republican Party got a little less crowded this week.

Grassroots organizer Lori Horn announced at a meeting of the Arapahoe County Tea Party on Tuesday night that she was ending her campaign for state GOP chair and instead would be running for vice chair at the biennial reorganization meeting in March. Her move leaves incumbent state Republican chairman Ryan Call and Douglas County Republican chairman Mark Baisley as the only two announced candidates. Current vice chairman Don Ytterberg — also the head of the Jefferson County Republicans — is the other announced candidate for vice chair.

A Senate committee waved ahead a bill to establish civil unions for gay couples in Colorado on Wednesday over objections that it infringes on the religious rights of adoption agencies and bakers.

“When two people are fortunate enough to have found someone that they want to share the rest of their life with, why should the state of Colorado stand in the way?” asked state Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, one of four openly gay lawmakers sponsoring Senate Bill 11 this year.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar plans to return along with his trademark cowboy hat and bolo tie collection to Colorado in March after four years heading the department, he announced on Wednesday.

“I have had the privilege of reforming the Department of the Interior to help lead the United States in securing a new energy frontier, ushering in a conservation agenda for the 21st century, and honoring our word to the nation’s first Americans,” said Salazar in a statement.

The seventh time could be a charm, backers of the proposed Colorado ASSET bill say.

If Democratic legislators get their way this year — and their solid majorities in both chambers make that exceedingly likely — Colorado high school graduates who aren’t legal residents, but who meet certain other criteria, will soon be able to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.

Colorado Republican Party Chairman Ryan Call will face at least two challengers in his bid for a second term, which he made official this week. Douglas County GOP Chairman Mark Baisley plans to announce his run on Tuesday, The Colorado Statesman has learned, and Centennial-based grassroots organizer Lori Horn is also running for the top spot. State Republicans pick their leadership team in early March at the party’s biennial reorganization meeting.

The Colorado House elected state Rep. Mark Ferrandino as its first gay speaker on Wednesday as a new Democratic maj-ority took over the gavel amid calls for cooperation and comity on the opening day of the 69th General Assembly.

“This is the greatest honor of my life, and I am humbled to stand here before you today,” said the Denver Democrat, whose family — including his husband, Greg Wertsch — sat in the front row of a packed House chamber. Ferrandino’s niece and nephew, Abbey and Owen McWhirter, led the assembled lawmakers, staff and guests in the Pledge of Allegiance.

On the heels of “a hard year” in Colorado — punctuated by rampant wildfires and a mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater — Gov. John Hickenlooper urged lawmakers on Thursday to respond to adversity the way westerners always have.

Although President Barack Obama won the popular vote in Colorado last month, it didn’t officially count until Monday when nine Democrats convened at the State Capitol to cast the final ballots for Obama and Vice President Joe Biden in the constitutionally mandated ritual of the Electoral College, a formal step toward filling the highest office in the land. It was the second time in four years that Colorado’s electors had voted for Obama and Biden.